The rate of homeownership in the United States fell last quarter to the lowest it has been in decades, continuing a trend that has caused financial regulators noticeable anxiety.
The Census Bureau said Tuesday that only 63.5 percent of Americans owned homes in the second quarter of 2015, on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The proportion is down from 63.8 percent in the first quarter, and has now fallen for seven consecutive quarters, by a total of 1.5 percentage points.
The seasonally-adjusted rate had not dipped below 63.7 percent since the Census Bureau started tabulating it in 1980. Its previous low was reached in 1986.
Driving the aggregate move away from homeownership is the reluctance of young adults to partake in it since the 2008 financial collapse, despite the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates at record lows.
Other data released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday showed that only 34.8 percent of Americans under the age of 35 years-old owned homes. In the first quarter, it was at 34.6 percent—the lowest it has been since the bureau started keeping the dataset in 1994.
Last year, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen described the housing market as a drag on economic recovery, and said it “has shown little recent progress.”
“While this sector has recovered notably from its earlier trough, housing activity leveled off in the wake of last year’s increase in mortgage rates, and readings this year have, overall, continued to be disappointing,” she said.
In February, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen also noted that millennials’ adjustment to a post-2008 world was causing her some concern.
Download the Census Bureau’s data on homeownership rates (.xls): seasonally adjusted || by age.
